VW Group invests $10M in battery start-up Forge Nano

The Volkswagen Group is investing 10 million dollars in the startup Forge Nano to strengthen its expertise in battery research. US-American company Forge is working on a material coating that could make battery cells more efficient.

The agreement is still subject to approval by the authorities. Volkswagen’s electrical offensive has precipitated a growing interest in acquiring specialist knowledge in battery research and so the German company has been investing in international start-ups to bring innovative technologies to industrial maturity.

Volkswagen wants explicitly to support Forge Nano in the industrial testing of its technology. The Group has been cooperating with the Louisville-based startup in the state of Colorado since 2014 where it is researching processes for scaling atomic layer deposition (ALD). This is a chemical process for the deposition of molecular layers with which Forge Nano aims to increase the energy density of battery cells.

“We must safeguard our technological expertise for the future,” affirms Dr Axel Heinrich, Head of Volkswagen Group Research. Cooperation with founding companies and innovators in critical technologies such as batteries is an essential step in this process.

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